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walas74

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My fail-safe method of dealing with spam accounts

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Total Posts: 1338

Joined 2009-08-06

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Dear AG,

I have noticed this site has to deal its share with spambots.

Another website I frequent(not gaming related) uses the following method and it’s super effective!

First post moderation: Where first posts by accounts don’t appear to the public but only appear to moderators and need to be approved. From there it’s easier to weed out spam accounts before they have even their time to post something before they get removed.

EDIT 1 Some clarification: New users can see their own posts that have been posted before approval, and so can moderators. Only until one post has been approved will all their posts appear to all members.

     
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Total Posts: 334

Joined 2003-10-16

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Good in principle. Two issues that I can see.

First, is it easy to integrate into the forum software? Because someone has ta actually implement that feature. It is likely to be a lot more complicated than clicking a “first-post moderation” button to on.

Second, and more importantly, this is a volunteer-run site. There are no paid moderators here. Depending on sign-up volume, you’re looking at potentially adding a lot of extra work to those people. You might also be looking at new users leaving in frustration if they sign up at a time when none of those volunteers are around.

     

No Nonsense Nonsonnets 44

Quest for Knowledge

I’m hoping to find name for game that I played long ago
The people here so well-informed, someone is sure to know
A time machine, grandfather clock, I give it to myself
Oh never mind, the box is sitting there upon my shelf

For real retro gaming nerds, name that game.

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Total Posts: 1338

Joined 2009-08-06

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Regarding your first stated issue: I will look into what the other forum used to employ this system. I don’t know what template or service is used for this forum. Could be a feature that can be toggled on, could indeed be a little more complicated.

Regarding your second stated issue: I don’t see the problem. The influx of new active members is moderate i.e. not that high. Keep in mind that time is spend on deleting spam threads and spam posts as well and this would be taken away.
So I don’t think it would increase the workload significantly. If I am right the other forum I visit only has 3 moderators working on the forums and the volume of new posts a day is by estimation 5x more than here.

Regarding issue with members not willing to sign up as easily? I don’t see an issue here as well. This forum is pretty niche and I find the majority are people that are really invested with the genre. What I am saying is that people signing up here are people specifically looking for this type of forum and thus a first post moderation wouldn’t raise the threshold enough to keep this people from wanting to sign.
It could actually benefit the image of the forum in the way that it gives the impression that strict measures are taken against spam.

But you are right on that if there are long period of times where moderators are not active this could be annoying to those new members. But judging by how short-lived the spam is before deleted I’d say those times are not that frequent.


Just an idea I wanted to throw out there. Could be taken into consideration or could not be.

EDIT: Just now noticed the reply is from a moderator. So you probably hold the data on the amount of sign-ups. My arguments are solely based on my experience as a regular forum user.

 

     
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Total Posts: 2648

Joined 2004-01-18

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An easier and less moderator controlled system that I have seen on other forums is to set a minimum level of activity before links are allowed. I.e you can’t link to an external site until your 6th post.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

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Total Posts: 1341

Joined 2012-02-17

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I could be imagining it, but I seem to recall there being a no-link feature for first-time users at one point. This is in the “old” forums, of course. That does have some drawbacks too, mind you, like adventure game developers looking to promote their games, so maybe we scrapped it. Might be worth looking into for the current software, though.

Origami, your idea has merit, but I think we’d rather have legit new users up and running right away. It’s not like the odd spam threads disrupt anything, and usually they’re zapped fairly promptly.

     
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Total Posts: 600

Joined 2011-06-07

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I like the idea aswel. On a typical workday I delete between 7 and 10 spam posts on the forums. I was wondering aswel how many legit new sign-ups we have on a typical week, but if it’s considerably lower than the number of spam posts, then it might very well be more efficient to implement such a feature.

Now, I don’t know how much work it is or if it’s even possible to implement, but I like the idea.

     
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Total Posts: 1338

Joined 2009-08-06

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Jackal - 21 February 2016 04:07 PM

Origami, your idea has merit, but I think we’d rather have legit new users up and running right away. It’s not like the odd spam threads disrupt anything, and usually they’re zapped fairly promptly.


Keep in mind though that in the experience of the new user it is barely noticeable.
He is able to sign up and post straight away, but at least one post needs to be approved before his posts will be public.
Judging by the activity frequency on the board among regular users this shouldn’t disrupt the experience significantly. In my own experience there are times up to a couple of hours until someone replies after me in a topic.

I think the forum would benefit image-wise. To me honestly it’s not that much of an issue but spams happen often enough for me to wonder why it happens here more often compared to other forums I frequent. Again, not an issue to me but I can not speak for other new users. Maybe possibly the sporadic appearance of spam could create a negative subconscious association. I think it would contribute to a cleaner overall forum experience.

From how I see it, this forum doesn’t seem to be targeted at attracting the masses.
Rather, create a friendly environment for a friendly community of adventure gamers.
I think this idea would be complimentary for this vision.

What I am proposing is not revolutionary ofcourse, and if it doesn’t come through, no problem. But one day, being active on the other forum, I came to the realization that not encountering spam at all DOES leave a positive impression. The impact was at least big enough for me to go through the trouble of creating this topic, which is rare since I am pretty lazy overall. Anyway, I figured it might or might not benefit you guys but at least felt obligated to share this out of respect for this forum(I am not the biggest contributer, but I appreciate the work that is done here and its members).

Who knows, maybe looking into it you guys might find the pros outweigh the cons.
But I have never been part of a forum staff so I have little insight to how things work internally with stuff like this.

     

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